I think that Romanticism certainly died as an artistic movement, but in its decomposed state it continues to shape popular culture. Though at the time Romantic ideas seemed revolutionary, our society has gradually internalized them. Today, we simply take them for granted, as conventional wisdom or as a set of rules that define mainstream art.
This influence is most obvious in popular music, regardless of genre. Our culture values artists who authentically and emotionally communicate personal experiences, an approach first popularized by the Romantics. Oftentimes, we also value passion and spontaneity over craftsmanship and perfection. For example, Migos recently admitted that they spend an average of 20-40 minutes on their songs, while Lil B, one of my favorite rappers, is notorious for releasing mixtapes composed of dozens of directly freestyled tracks. A similar trend exists in contemporary visual art, where many famous artists, beginning with the likes of Jackson Pollock, value process over the final result.
Nature might not be as dominant in today’s poetry and art as it was in the times of Romanticism, but I don’t think that it’s a defining element of the movement. It seems to often serve as a metaphor for the individual mind and spirituality, rather than a subject in and of itself. I think that popular contemporary artists and writers simply learned to be more direct about these subjects, so they don’t project onto nature as much. Other specific details of Romanticism though, like its fascination with dreams and drugs, seem even more prevalent in modern culture. So although Romanticism lost much of its acuteness, I would say that it continues to frame our art and culture to this day.
Nice death metaphor, very Dickinson of you. You make a really interesting point about how time breaks apart movements and takes what it wants. I definitely think about generation is very focused on individualism and not so much on nature (maybe that's why our earth is rotting and burning).
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